Homeward Bound

Back in December, I scheduled my flight home for the day after the last band rehearsal of the year. As it turned out, rehearsal got cancelled, and my flight could have been. It had been a while since I missed a bus, or had to fly in wintry weather, so it was about time for another Travel Misadventure™. Things started fine. I met with my advisor at 8:30 in the morning so we could talk before I took off for two weeks. I finished packing, cleared the perishable food out of the refrigerator, and left the apartment relatively clean. Leg one of the journey, catching a bus to central campus, went fine. I then walked to the city’s transit center to catch another bus to the Detroit airport. We got to the airport fine. I also got an email saying that my flight would be delayed . . . by 13 minutes. Fine, no problem.

At the airport, I went to print my boarding pass, only to be told by the kiosk that I would have to go to the desk. There, I got stuck behind all the people in the airport with very complicated problems requiring rescheduling of flights and consultation of supervisors. I wasn’t bothered because I took an early bus and did eventually get my boarding pass. Security moved quickly, and then of course my bag got pulled out for personal inspection. The TSA agent examined an assortment of candles and a box of chocolate before getting to my jar of cookies and bag of cut up fruit. She had no problems with any of these items, and we were all sent along on our ways.

I located my gate, went to buy dinner snacks, and when I got back to the gate, my flight, scheduled to leave at 7:06 pm (originally 6:53 pm), now had a departure time of 8:02 pm. I wasn’t completely surprised because there had been bad weather all along the east coast that day. Also not completely surprising: another delay to 9:08 pm. It was then some time before 5 pm, so I only had another . . . four more hours to wait in the airport. It’s a good thing I don’t mind airports, and I mostly didn’t want the flight to be outright cancelled.

I wandered around the terminal; looked at Christmas decorations, prints from the Detroit Institute of Arts, dining options, expensive souvenirs; found the flight to Orlando, recognizable by the number of screaming children wearing princess dresses; discovered a Chick-fil-A to be opened later this year. By the time I returned to the gate, the gate agents were there (with snacks), and our departure time had been (yet again) revised back to 8:00 pm, which was likely to be close to our actual departure time since the incoming flight from DC was on its way by then. I settled in to watch YouTube videos until boarding, which began around 7:30 pm. Shortly after, we were in the air, and landed in Boston by 10. Shortly after that, I was home.